The Feminist Mistake is an exercise for the brain, in that the amount of detail the author, Mary Kassian, presents to solidify her case is truly a bit to wade through. But those who dare to take the challenge aren’t disappointed in the least. (Just don’t plan to read it while you’re overseeing the kids as they finger-paint.) As Kassian details the progression of modern feminist thought from the 1960’s to the present, the reader is rewarded with an understanding of feminist thought on current culture and its implications for today and the future.

The book begins by tracing modern feminism with the advent of The Feminine Mystique and The Second Sex wherein groundbreaking feminists argued that society had wrongly defined women, and therefore, women’s roles were the cause of their own unhappiness, not women themselves. (Eve’s blame game is alive and well.) In order to find fulfillment, they believed that women needed to emulate their masculine counterparts and start contributing more valuable things to society than motherhood. Feminists sought to redefine themselves, and history proves that whoever defines the terms wins the argument.

After feminists succeeded in naming themselves, they won the right to begin naming society. No longer was it enough to be equal to man, now it was time to prove that they were better than the male species. Enter lesbianism and the devaluing of motherhood. Although at the time, radical feminism was viewed as on the fringe edge of the movement, it wasn’t long before the constant barrage of feminist ideals and thought found their way into modern presuppositions. Kassian’s point is well noted, but a truly enjoyable exercise would’ve been to explore these examples and their implications further.

When feminists won the right to name the world, the right to name God was just a natural progression. Kassian presents a compelling, yet disturbing trend: as society chooses a path to militant gender egalitarianism, the modern church has not been far behind. Following radical feminism are moderate feminists and religious feminists. Reading the Bible with the newspaper in hand is the basis of feminist theology. The feminization of God was not the only shocking trend; all passages that didn’t line up with their idea of who they wanted God to be were passed off as cultural in nature, irrelevant, or basically ignored. The feminists espoused an obviously radical, unbiblical concept, and Kassian documents how religious acceptance follows subtly about 15 years later to reflect those changes in modern thought. (Case in point, think the gender neutral Bible.)

In the same way, Kassian also notes that the influence of feminist thought is subtle, dangerous, and alive and well. This is the entire crux of the book, and I admit my disappointment that Kassian did not explore this with the same detail that she gave history. The modern feminist movement is not extinct; it has just so well infiltrated the culture that we don’t recognize for what it is: an assault on Biblical, God-defined gender roles. In a culture where we’re bombarded from every angle with messages from “Just do it” to “Obey your thirst”, we’d do well to remember that God alone is truth, and our satisfaction is only found in obedience to His Word.

For further reading, visit Diet of Bookworms.

I found it amusing that a book about work was not very much work to read. Perhaps it is because the author’s purpose is just to get you thinking rightly about the subject, so that you can, well… just get back to work.

Work Excellence by Charles M. Garriott sets out to answer what it means to have a biblical perspective of work. Do you understand what it means to glorify God in your work? What is the standard for the Christian in work? What does excellence look like in the life of a Christian? Garriott’s goal is to answer these questions and he does a fine job of that. It was a quick read, as well as a good read. Which is excellent, because I’ve a house to run. (Have I ever mentioned that?)

There are two of me. The Rare Me toils the day away and slides into bed late in the evening (not letting the lamp go out, of course) with a prayer of worship. My joints ache, but my heart is filled with gratitude, satisfaction, and thanksgiving for a day of hard labor. This actually happens every time we shovel mulch. Then, there is the other me—The Typical Me—that climbs the stairs, picking up miscellaneous, forgotten Legos on my way, collapsing into bed, cursing the late hour, vowing to get to bed earlier the next night, and asking my husband, “You mean I have to do this again tomorrow?”

So, when Garriott points out early in the book on page 13 that the “only thing secular about work is the way we view and treat it,” I knew I’d be in for a worthwhile read. After exegeting the biblical passage of Cain and Abel, Garriott concludes that “there is no excellence in work if it does not lead to worship.” All of life is worship, whether we are doing it with our work on six days or with our worship and rest on the seventh day. Our lives are an offering (Romans 12:1), so it necessarily follows that our work is for God’s glory, as well.

So, what then, are we do with the conflict and drudge that often accompanies a lot of our work? When God cursed the ground in Genesis, causing mankind’s labor and pain to increase significantly, He not only showed us His wrath against sin, He reminded us of His mercy. In this world, we will labor, and the weeds will compete against our efforts. This is because of sin. The weeds are a reminder of His judgment and wrath. Yet, in the same passage, God promises a Deliverer who will “crush the head” of the serpent. This promise gives all of us who toil a reason to work with excellence for God’s glory.

God’s blessing is necessary for my work to be done well and to His glory. (Chapter 10) Even God’s common grace—the way He blesses the work of those who don’t acknowledge Him—is an opportunity to worship Him for His graciousness. We create idols when we allow our work to give us meaning, happiness, and fulfillment. (Satisfaction is found in Christ—as John Piper often says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.) As a mother—who happens to be in a somewhat monotonous stage of motherhood—this is a truth worth remembering and living.

From the title, I surmised that the author might set out to solve the world’s problems of work (famine, welfare, laziness, and maybe a little chapter on outsourcing), but instead he stuck pretty close to home. That is to say, Work Excellence looks at what the Bible has to tell us on the subject of work. “The Christian standard of excellence calls us to holiness and gives God alone all the glory for every good thing He enables us to do in each and every area of our lives.” (page xiv) May it be for me and you, as well!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, The Rare Me needs to get to bed this evening.

This book was reviewed as part of a program coordinated by Diet of Bookworms. More reviews of this book should be up at Diet of Bookworms later today.

With contributions by: John Piper, Ben Patterson, David Powlison, R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Mark Dever, Michael Lawrence, Matt Schmucker, Scott Croft, C. J. Mahaney, Carolyn McCulley, and Carolyn Mahaney.

Background
The title of this book does a very good job of communicating the theme that you will find everywhere throughout the book’s pages. Sex and the Supremacy of Christ is edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor and is an outworking of a conference that John Piper’s church, Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, sponsored in 2004. That the title tends to strike the ear as unusual at best and shocking at worst is perhaps the biggest reason a book like this needs to be written.

The purpose statement for Desiring God ministries, a ministry of Bethlehem Baptist, is to “spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.” At the core of this purpose is the belief that, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” These core beliefs are the driving force behind this work, which is a compilation of contributions from a number of writers.

Layout
The fundamental questions which the book seeks to answer is, “What do sex and the supremacy of Christ have to do with each other, and what implications should this have for our everyday lives?” The short answer, given in the introduction, is that sex cannot be rightly understood or practiced without seeing how sex relates to God and that our entire life and worldview – including our sex life and views on sexuality – are to be oriented around the glory of God.

To answer those questions, the book is divided into five parts: Part 1 – God and Sex, Part 2 – Sin and Sex, Part 3 – Men and Sex, Part 4 – Women and Sex, Part 5 – History and Sex. I will return to Part 1 momentarily, but first let me provide a review of the latter four parts.

Highlights
In part two, David Powlison opens with the challenge for Christians to recognize that sexual sin is only one manifestation of a deeper war for our heart’s primary love. “The goal of the battle is not ‘just say no’ and not just the ‘means of grace,’ but rather the goal is to see Jesus Christ himself. Al Mohler’s presents a powerful argument for why homosexual marriage is such a challenge for the church. The power of his argument comes from his recognition that there are larger issues at stake than homosexual unions. Mohler points out that the church’s opposition to homosexual marriage is not about the “yuck factor” or the usual concerns about the moral decay of society. Rather, his appeal is to the glory of God. “The normalizing of homosexual behavior will take the sinfulness of homosexuality to a new level of moral rebellion. God’s glory demonstrated through marriage and the covenant that he created will be corrupted so utterly that idolatry will be institutionalized and the truth will be suppressed in radical unrighteousness.”

Parts three and four of the book focus on men and women, respectively. Sex and its relation to the single man and single woman are thoughtfully and helpfully addressed in their individual sections. The Mahaneys offer some practical counsel to men and women regarding their calling as husbands and wives in their chapters titled, “Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God: What Every Christian Husband/Wife Needs to Know.”

The final section of the book presents two very interesting and different historical and cultural perspectives on sexuality and the glory of God, one from Martin Luther and one from the writings of the (much maligned) Puritans. Both Luther and the Puritans bring important contributions with Luther’s exaltation of marriage in a time when many viewed it as a necessary evil, and the Puritan call to “Turn all your passions into the right channel, and make them all holy, using them for God upon the greatest things.”

The Best Part
I saved the best for last, because the first two chapters of this book are worth the entire price of admission. In these chapters, Piper makes just two points, but in classic John Piper style, he makes his points very well (read: saturated with scripture) and in a way that focuses entirely on Christ. First, he says that “Sexuality is designed by God as a way to know God in Christ more fully.” That is to say, the ultimate reason that God made us sexual is so that God might be more deeply knowable.

Piper’s second point is that “Knowing God in Christ more fully is designed as a way of guarding and guiding our sexuality.” This is where Piper is far beyond any other book that I have read on the subject of sexuality. His treatment is not superficial as so many of those “moral strategy” type books tend to be. As he says, “There are many practical strategies for being sexually pure in mind and body. I don’t demean them. I use them! But with all my heart I know, and with the authority of Scripture I know, that the tiny spaceships of our moral strategies will be useless in nudging the planet of sexuality into orbit, unless the sun of our solar system is the supremacy of Christ.”

Part of our family’s culture is reading. After dinnertime, we all pile into the family room while my husband reads aloud a chapter book before reading the Scripture. Sometimes it’s in reverse order, depending on what time it is. Throughout the day, since our children are home, they can be found sprawled out on various surfaces in the house with a book in hand. Our preschooler memorizes every book and “reads” them to herself and to anyone who will give her an audience. (The audience usually means the baby, but we all love to hear her various versions of different books…the first ten times, anyway.) Now, our children play a lot as well, but I think they consider reading a part of that play.

Cultivating an atmosphere of reading in the home will not make your children godly, but the things that are forsaken in favor of reading might prove to be beneficial to their character, making it easier to promote godly character in the meantime. What I mean is, because reading and listening to read alouds are part of our family culture, sitting quietly in order to listen during family worship is not a chore. Because we generally reject activities that do not stimulate the mind, body, or soul, they are not conditioned to “tune out” or vegetate during worship. Among the many benefits of reading, I believe this attentiveness is the most valuable side benefit for children. (“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction…” Proverbs 1:8)

There are other productive ways to develop character and train children in the Lord; this is just one idea that works successfully in our family. I submit that it’s still possible to raise godly children who prefer an Xbox to a stack of worthwhile literature (and no, I’m not the Xbox police, and my kids have played one before…), but I believe that cultivating and feeding good habits makes the job of training in righteousness just a little bit easier. And I say, “Bring it on,” to most things that make my job less complicated.

Recommended reading:

Most of All, Jesus Loves You, by Noel Piper, illustrated by Debby Anderson. This is a delightful picture book with smiley children on each page. It is an easy read for beginning readers, as there is repetition on each page. The book seeks to make one point with just a few sentences: while Mom, Dad, cousins, aunts, and others love you very much–most of all, Jesus loves you. Simple, sweet, and a favorite over-and-over again book for preschoolers.

As a side note, Noel Piper also wrote a book for women on the subject of traditions, as well as a new release entitled Faithful Women and their Extraordinary God, which I am going to buy soon.

God Knows My Name, by Debby Anderson. This is a great book for children aged 3-7, and for moms who are sitting on the couch, wondering if God really sees and cares about all that they do. As the author’s students sweetly sign their names in kindergarten print on the front and back pages of the book, Anderson creatively works in each of the children in her class into the book’s wonderful illustrations. Anderson is a fabulous illustrator, and her talent shows well in this book and the book I mentioned above.

God Knows My Name opens with a simple truth expressed, “God made everything and God knows everything! God knows me. He even knows my favorite color. What’s your favorite color? Surprise! God already knew it! ~Psalm 139:1” I love it. After reading, “God sees me when I go to bed. He can watch over me because He never sleeps. He can see in the dark,” my three-year-old deduced, “And He can see me, too, Mama, when I go to sleep at night.” Yes, He can. Not only does our God see, but He is a God who cares for our plight. I don’t mind reading this book repeatedly, as it renews the profound truth of God’s particular caretaking of His people in my own heart each time.

I think a wonderful addition to the book would have been to work in the Scripture references (perhaps as watermarkings) in the illustrations. But, it’s a top notch book just as it is.

The Big Picture Story Bible, by David Helm, illustrated Gail Schoonmaker. This book is akin to the opening scene in The Sound of Music, wherein the camera pans the mountains before zooming in on Maria, except that when the book zooms in, the picture isn’t entirely clear. (When my kids saw the juice spilling out of the “forbidden fruit,” they asked why there were worms in the apple.) If you’re looking for a very broad overview of common Bible stories that is appealing to preschoolers and won’t bore the schoolage children, this book is a good choice. I even enjoy it.

Since the title of the book contains the words, “The Big Picture,” really, the book is fulfilling its purpose, even though it skips a lot of history. The book is 451 pages with large illustrations and about 3-5 sentences on every two pages. My seven-year-old has read through it several times already, because “I don’t know, Mom, I just like it.” All the well-known Bible stories are here (except Daniel), plus a few lesser attended ones–some of the kings and prophets are briefly mentioned and John’s vision is explained over several pages.

In short, it’s not a Bible substitute, but rather, a good Bible reinforcement. I mentioned previously the mistake we made early on in our family worship practice when we used Bible storybooks as our devotional material, rather than the Bible itself. So long as the book is seen in its proper place–that of retelling rather than replacing– I think it has a appropriate and fitting place in the hands of all children.

Brian Chapell, president of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, has written several books on marriage, Christian living, and expository preaching. In this book, Chapell sets out to change our priorities in prayer such that “when Jesus’ priorities come first, our prayers will change. They will be less self-oriented, more Christ-directed, more blessed, and ultimately most satisfying to our hearts.”

The basic premise of the book, as you may be able to gather from the title, Praying Backwards, is that we should begin our prayers where we usually end them, by thinking about what it means to pray “in Jesus name” before we start. “When our routines [tagging on a quick, ‘in Jesus name, amen’ to the end of our prayers] have desensitized us to [Jesus’] priorities, then it’s time to begin where we end.” Chapell sets out to describe what this looks like by describing what it means to pray in Jesus’ way, to pray without doubting, to pray in the Spirit, to pray boldly, expectantly, and persistently, and to pray in God’s will and wisdom.

A constant theme throughout the book is that when we begin praying in Jesus’ name, our entire modus operandi in prayer changes. As Chapell says, “When we perceive the greatness and goodness of our God, our prayers become not so much a seeking after God for our purposes but an offering of ourselves for his purposes.” I think I need to read that sentence again.

This is not a superficial treatment of prayer as it is thoroughly laced with scriptural content. Chapell also deals effectively with difficult subjects such as the persecution and starvation of Sudanese Christians in light of the petition to “give us this day our daily bread”. He calls the reader to lift their understanding above the superficial and material to that which matters most.

In addition to being a thorough treatment on the subject for the average lay-person, the book contains two very helpful features. First, every chapter is concluded with an example prayer highlighting the subject of the chapter. These serve as effective reinforcement of the subject matter of the chapter. Second, the book has a study guide which consists of a series of questions on the themes of each chapter. I found the questions to be thought provoking and a helpful reminder of the main themes of the book. It’s a good review and reinforcement of what was just read. He must be a preacher or something.

Overall, Chapell writes with a very pastoral style. His points are reinforced first with scripture and second with effective, and often very personal, illustrations. He does not approach the subject of prayer academically; rather, his illustrations indicate that what he writes is what he lives.

I highly recommend this book as a helpful spark to your prayer life and as an interesting discussion starter for your own family’s prayer life.

For more reviews on this book, visit Diet of Bookworms.

I’ve done a few book reviews here, so I’d like to take a minute to note that publishers do not compensate me for any of the reviews. I’m only supplied with the book. Furthermore, I have a few books that I’ll post about later that was not sent to me by a publisher, but I want to mention just because they have encouraged me and are a worthwhile read.

A few weeks ago, there was a little talk going around on Harry Potter, fantasy literature, and the Christian’s response to it. The fantasy work of C.S. Lewis stands the test of time and scrutiny, and so I was interested in a literary analysis of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Since my husband is most familiar the Narnia series and his knowledge on the series exceeds my own, I asked him to write this review. Plus, he’s a lot smarter than me.

Review of A Reader’s Guide Through the Wardrobe, by Leland Ryken and Marjorie Lamp Reed
By Greg Scott

I was interested in reading this book for two reasons. First, and to my great enrichment, I had used one of Dr. Ryken’s books on literary criticism and Scripture when I was in seminary. I enjoyed that book immensely, and not being well versed in the art of literary criticism in general and particularly applying those techniques to the interpretation of Scripture, Dr. Ryken led me on a fascinating and illuminating journey which greatly enhanced my delight in and understanding of the Bible. Second, like so many others, I have greatly enjoyed the Chronicles of Narnia over the years and even more so now as I have experienced them anew through the imagination of my young children.

As an aside, you may have guessed that I would highly recommend Dr. Ryken’s books on literary criticism and the Bible. Pick one up and read it. You will find great enrichment for your devotional life.

As far as the book at hand, my personal experience was that it did nothing to further my enjoyment of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. This is not to disparage A Reader’s Guide; Ryken and Reed accomplish what they set out to. I would highly recommend this literary criticism of C.S. Lewis’ classic tale, especially if you are inclined toward the subject. Perhaps if you are so inclined you will find your delight in the story enriched. However, as I am not so disposed, this work was just too technical and textbook-like to be used as an aid for my enjoyment of Lewis’ tale.

There are several features that I found very interesting, nevertheless. For example, there are vignettes spread throughout the book which offer insights into the elements, such as the family wardrobe and the lamp post outside his home, that helped shape Lewis’ imagination as he crafted this classic story. There are also some interesting photographs of Lewis and his family from childhood into later life.

The authors present a chapter on the development of the Narnia stories and the chronological unfolding of their publication. There is also an interesting discussion of the reception of the Narnia stories by those favorable and by those not so propitious along with a discussion of some of the criticism that Lewis’ contemporaries and colleagues offered upon his tales.

Finally, if you are not interested in any of these features of the book but you happen to find yourself passing by one of those mall bookstores with a hankering for a cup of coffee with a few minutes to spare, I suggest you pick out this book and review the authors’ treatment of the comparison of the Narnian stories and the Harry Potter stories of J.K. Rowling. It is an interesting discussion that provides some good food for thought for the contemporary Christian.

For more reviews of this book and others, visit Diet of Bookworms.

This morning I overheard my five-year-old daughter searching for brown sugar and happening upon the coffee instead. She took a big sniff and profoundly declared, “That is coffee because it smells… coffee-ish.” In the same Webster-ish manner, forgive me for declaring that Total Truth: Study Guide Edition is nothing less than total truth.

To parrot what’s been said already in numerous publications would be a waste of your reading time. It is no doubt likely, if you are at all in tune with the goings on in recent Christian periodicals, that you have heard of the book Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey. There have been many excellent reviews of this book, with several very good ones at Diet of Bookworms. As I do not have anything further to say about this book that has not already been said, and inasmuch as there are many more eloquent book reviewers out there who have done an excellent job representing this book, I thought instead that I might offer a service to you discerning readers out there. Therefore, I submit to you a simple guide to deciding whether or not you should read Total Truth.

The Unofficial Do-you-need-to-read-Total-Truth Pop Quiz
Rate your answers to the following ten questions from 1 to 5 with 1 being “strongly disagree” and 5 being “strongly agree”:

1. Truth matters.
2. I want to integrate theology into my everyday life.
3. I like interesting and thought provoking chapter titles.
4. America and Christianity are not synonyms.
5. Thorough research is important in a book dealing with Christianity and Culture.
6. The cultural mandate motivates me in what I do every day.
7. My vocation has eternal significance.
8. Darwinism has huge ramifications for everyday life.
9. Christianity has everything to do with every area of life.
10. I am a 21st century Christian, and I am out of My Utmost for His Highest Graduation Edition copies to give to high-school graduates.

So here’s how the scores shape up:
1-9 – You did something wrong because you should have a minimum of 10. Please re-read the instructions and complete the quiz again – but don’t bother reading this book, you won’t get it.

10-49 – You really need to read this book, especially if you scored anything significant on number 10.

50 – You’re Nancy Pearcey. You wrote the book, so you don’t need to read it.

In short, if you are a serious Christian alive in this century, you need to read this book.

There are many reasons that churches split, but the single most rampant reason in recent decades has been over the infamous Worship War. The older generation wants to keep things “the way we’ve always done them” while the younger generation desires a more hip, relevant worship style.

As the church pianist in all the congregations I find myself in, I try to stay on the outskirts of this debate as I believe that the two opposing parties are usually asking and debating the wrong question. The debate should not be about choruses versus hymns, but rather, about man-centered versus God-centered worship. Anything less is dealing with the subject superficially. Furthermore, there is an aspect of yielding my preferences to yours that can not go overlooked. For a good resource on the subject, pick up Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down: A Theology of Worship for This Urgent Time by Marva Dawn.

Hymns: they have rich history and doctrine in their favor. The reason to embrace them is not for their sentimental value, but for their content. Without a doubt, today’s choruses contain a lot of fluff—with a few notable exceptions– and lack the maturity of many of the old hymns, the bad ones notwithstanding. Why? Because the current culture lacks the mature faith of the old hymn writers, and immature faith translates into immature music. Could I pen the following? “Let sorrow do it’s work/ Send grief and pain/ Sweet are Thy messengers/ Sweet their refrain.” It does me well to read, sing, and meditate on those whose faith is beyond my own–contemporary and traditional.

But that doesn’t answer the question of where to fit in God-centered, God-exalting choruses. Scripture commands us to sing a new song unto the Lord. And herein lies the rub with singing choruses. In short, if within the congregation there is not the ability to lead the worshippers in a manner that is not distracting, then a church should embrace the form that brings the most attention to God, not man. It is extremely rare to attend a contemporary, hymns-banned church where the words on the wall actually match what you are supposed to be singing, the worship leader isn’t wearing shades and a Hawaiian shirt, the worship team doesn’t have a lady flaunting a miniskirt, and all the microphones actually work and are in balance.

In order to touche’ myself, it is also important that the traditional pianist pay attention to how many verses are in a hymn. But I don’t want to talk about that anymore.

In the same vain, anyone who thinks hymns are the only way to worship has not visited another culture or another time in history, pre-Puritan. The Church should uphold that music which is mature, aesthetic, and God-centered, no matter the era it was written.

Just in case you think I’m out of touch, the very first time I sang a hymn other than Amazing Grace was when I went away to a fundamental, no-leaving-your-dorm-on-Wednesday-night-because-someone-might-think-you-skipped-church, KJV college at the age of 17. Before then, I grew up in various charismatic churches, some of them were cults by definition. If you are a psychologist, you might surmise that my rejection of a lot of modern worship is due to the influences of my childhood and my resulting dismissal of the doctrine, lifestyle, and hypocrisy that went along with it. But is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and so, I like to think that I am looking at the situation critically and deliberately—embracing the good, rejecting the bad. I don’t always succeed.

And so now, when I find myself in a Hawaiian-shirt worship service, I worship sincerely along with them. These are my brothers and sisters in Christ, and while I have my preferences, I know that the right way to worship God is not with (often misplaced) high standards, but with my love for the brethren.

Book Review: Hymns for a Kid’s Heart
It is only fitting that I take the chance here to review Hymns for a Kid’s Heart. The Diet of Bookworms program sent this to me a couple months ago, and we’ve enjoyed wearing out the book and the CD that came along with it. I’m writing this post in response to an earlier question regarding how to teach our children hymns and what to do when you attend a church that doesn’t sing hymns.

The reason our children know many hymns by heart is not because we attend a church that sings them, but rather, because they live in a home that uses them for daily worship (along with solid choruses). There are many children in our church who do not know any hymns, but that is because of the failure of the parents, not the church. Deuteronomy 6 delegates the nurture and training of His children to parents, and while corporate worship is a part of that training, the primary responsibility rests on the parents alone.

Beside a traditional hymnbook, books such as Hymns for a Kid’s Heart are helpful in teaching the history and circumstances of hymns. With colorful illustrations, easy chord charts for guitar players (and lazy pianists), and engaging stories, Hymns for a Kid’s Heart is a delightful read. I appreciate that they included all the verses, as much kiddie media usually only utilizes the first verse. This is a mistake most publishers make, but thankfully, not this time. People underestimate the ability of a three-year-old to sing all the verses of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. They can do it!

Common hymns are included (like Holy, Holy, Holy and How Firm a Foundation) and a couple not-so-common hymns (Eternal Father, Strong to Save and The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Want). The only selection I disagree with—in order that I might be consistent with my above-stated philosophy—is the inclusion of America, the Beautiful. It is not God-centered, God-focused, and therefore, not a good choice among the collection. Nevertheless, Hymns for a Kid’s Heart is a good selection if you’re looking to teach your children a few good hymns from start to finish.

When I finished the introduction and first chapter of Lord, Meet Me in the Laundry Room, I cried. Now, I’m not a regular crier, and even my advanced maternal state has me making “to do” lists, not wallowing in my hormone laden idiosyncrasies. Still, Barbara Curtis’ book resonated with me as no other mothering manuscript before.

The language wasn’t flowery; her thoughts were not new. Perhaps it is because she is a mother of twelve, and I could tell that every feeling and thought I’d ever nursed, she had already nursed before. Perhaps it was that I enjoyed reading more from a woman I had grown to know only online. Perhaps it was when she said this:

This book is about spending some time together sorting through the things that get in the way of finding joy in motherhood. It’s about getting real about the past and mistakes we’ve made, the limitations of our lifestyle as mothers, the competitive spirit that robs us of intimacy with other mothers, and the lack of affirmation that sometimes makes us want to cry.

This is a book about seizing each day, squeezing every bit of joy from every peanut-butter-and-jelly-smeared moment, finding God in the hum of a washing machine or an unexpected bargain. (page 9)

From the title, you might infer that the book is a “how-to” meet God in your everyday life as a mom. But it’s much more than that. Barbara (it seems more right to call her “Barbara” than the more formal “Curtis” when writing) begins her book by connecting with the reader. She doesn’t do this by saying, “Hey, I’ve got all these kids. Whatever story you’ve got, I can top.” Instead, Barbara weaves a story of her own misjudgments and creative mishaps with the old story of God’s faithfulness.

Then from the backseat I heard Zachary clear his throat and in his deadpan four-year-old Eeyore voice ask, “Mom, when are you going to get a job?”

“This is my job,” I said, maybe just a little edgy.

But homeward bound, as the kids fell asleep one by one and I was left alone with my thoughts, I began to see the beauty of Zach’s question: somehow—even though it could be hard work and even though I had my testy moments—my kids didn’t think of motherhood as a job.

And I decided that was a good thing—because it’s not really a job at all, but a calling… (page 98)

Today’s mothers are tired, due to nurturing the distractions that compete for our attention and affections. Reading this book was like a cup of cocoa on a cold day: Barbara’s warm candor and not-so-perfect stories were a treat to me, a mother in the trenches. Lord, Please Meet Me in the Laundry Room is a story of deliverance, Barbara’s own, as well as the one waiting for us younger mothers who have the willingness to learn some wisdom from those who’ve gone before.

In light of the recent discussion on femininity and culture, I recommend Wayne Grudem’s Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth. It has everything to do with the recent discussion on the matter and will prove a valuable resource. In fact, with 856 pages spanning commentary, appendices, and indexes, there is not a more thorough, current treatment of the subject available.

Many years ago, I read through Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, which is a compilation of essays by several authors, including two favorites—John Piper and Elisabeth Elliot. Since that initial groundbreaking work, evangelical feminists have found new arguments to bring to the table, and this work now addresses those points– 118 arguments to be exact.

In the first two chapters, Grudem makes the case using Scripture for a complementarian view of men and women; that is, that men and women are equal in value and personhood, but different in roles in marriage and the church. The rest of the book answers every evangelical feminist argument on the subject with great detail, fairness, and scholarship. (And if he skipped any, there is even a website to find updates on those arguments as well.) While the book is more aptly called a “work,” it is accessible to the layperson while maintaining its scholarship. It is readable, enjoyable, and usable. By that I mean, the subject headings are so well organized that the reader can skip, fast forward, and rewind with ease.

To give you a taste of what’s in the book, here’s a look at some interesting topics:

On a personal note, my husband teaches a class on Systematic Theology employing Wayne Grudem’s text on the subject by the same name. Since we’re nowhere near eschatology and several years have already gone by, it could be said of Grudem that if nothing else, he is thorough. However, after reading Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth, I’d have to add that he is “right on,” gifted, and gutsy as well.

Someone asked for some family read-aloud recommendations after I mentioned what our homeschool day looked like. Here is a good link. We’ve only read a few of the selections on that list. However, I know the guy who put that list together, and his recommendations are always top notch. Currently, we are rereading Wisdom and the Millers, a compilation of short stories involving the mischievous Mennonite Miller children and their Dad-who-always-knows-a-Proverb-perfect-for-their-little-mishap.

While the Miller series books are age appropriate for our little brood, we usually try to read books about one or two levels higher than their normal reading levels. If you are new to reading aloud, however, make sure your first experiences are accessible to most (if not all) of the family.

We first began this ritual when our firstborn was a preschooler. As the children have gotten older and more used to active listening, we’ve read slightly more difficult texts. For example, we chose The Boxcar Children series when the oldest ones were four and five, and my husband currently reads G.A. Henty novels very late at night with our seven-year-old. (I am personally bored senseless with G.A. Henty, but my husband says that he is learning a lot of history and enjoys it. To each his own, eh?)

Perhaps you might experience periods of reluctance from the children as we have. (Though, I don’t remember too much of it, as any reluctance was always short-lived.) They enjoy and look forward to reading in the evenings. If you experience any lack of enthusiasm, however, you might try our remedy. We give them the option of going to bed or staying up later to hear the story. Invariably—maybe these are just my kids?—they always choose to sit quietly and listen. They usually hang from the couch upside down, though.

The problem with writing a formal review of Crunchy Cons is that I finished it a few weeks ago. All the great points I wanted to make are lost now in the deep recesses of my junk drawer. If I think up something, I have to write it down immediately or say it. If I say it, chances are that it’s too loud in here so nobody can hear. So, I have to write it down. Which I didn’t.

But I thought it was worth mentioning the book here, even if I didn’t get a free copy for doing so. (Don’t ya’ll know that’s why there’s so many book reviews on blogs?) Crunchy Cons—subtitled How Birkenstocked Burkeans, gun-loving organic gardeners, evangelical free-range farmers, hip homeschooling mamas, right-wing nature lovers, and their diverse tribe of countercultural conservations plan to save America (or at least the Republican Party)—will cause you to nod your head in agreement on one page and then have you “tsk, tsking” on the next.

My tsking arises mostly because author Rod Dreher is a Catholic Republican and I’m a Protestant Constitutionalist, but that’s just details. Dreher’s mission of the book is to “explore ways that we who espouse conservative values can live more true to them, despite living in a society in which the structure of the economy, the influence of mass media, and the prevailing cultural mentality serve separate us from our values, our families, and our communities.” (p. 13)

Most of the public criticism of Crunchy Cons arises from side issues, not from the fact that Dreher’s work did a lot of what he set out to do. His chapters on food and consumerism are the most worthwhile in my opinion. In them, he recounts several stories of families who dropped out of the mainstream, bought farms, and are raising their children without the competing pressure of conventional culture. These people aren’t retreatists. Rather, they’ve decided that the present culture rots, and instead of raising their families to continue serving debt and a depraved Hollywood culture, they’ve structured a lifestyle that avoids those pitfalls.

While not everyone can pack up and move to the country tomorrow (our own family is an example of this), but as Dreher, a downtown dweller, says, “There are many ways in which we can live more conservatively no matter where we are. The most important thing we can do is toss out the television or commit ourselves to drastically curtailing its use. Putting ourselves and our families on a strict mass-media diet is vital; how can we ever hope to think on the Permanent Things if we fill our minds with nothing but ephemerality?”

While Dreher gives lots of page-time to the virtues of agrarianism, it is only because agrarianism espouses a lot of the values lacking in our mainstream culture. Quoting a guy named Caleb, Dreher observes, “Evangelicals have a great deal of energy and zeal, and that’s a good thing. It’s borne great fruit in some ways. But it’s tempered hardly at all by depth and rootedness. …One year it’ll be The Passion of the Christ, and the next year it’s Rick Warren and The Purpose Driven Life. There’s a lot of susceptibility in Evangelicalism to cultural shifts.”

I was a little disappointed with the chapter on “Home.” Though I wholeheartedly share Dreher’s aversion to suburban McMansions and favor quality older homes with front porches and personality, I thought a chapter with this title should’ve been more than just talk about architecture. His points are valid, but perhaps a more appropriate title would’ve been, “Houses,” if you catch my meaning.

Dreher isn’t really saying anything all that new. What makes this book different from traditional cultural observation books (such as Neil Postman’s work) is its accessibility. There are lots of stories to hold the reader’s attention, and the writing is clear and straightforward. This isn’t code for “dumbed-down.” It’s worth reading.

When my husband and I married, we began the habit of sitting down together for meals. As soon as the children arrived, the temptation arose to do what was expedient at the dinner table instead of what was better (separate meal times, not sitting down together, etc.). Sometimes it’s crazy. But we’ve pressed on, and every evening, with rare exception, we eat dinner as a family. All seven of us, and sometimes more, gather to be nourished in body and spirit. It is loud, for sure, but it is a place to connect, be fed, and a time to try to get a word in edgewise. We enjoy our table and usually linger there for awhile afterward.

The nightly ritual of cooking dinner, getting the table set, and sitting down can be somewhat of a chore. I enjoy the eating and talking part, but I don’t always enjoy the preparations. But today when I watched The Family Meal Table (produced by Franklin Springs Media), I was inspired to continue the tradition, and to approach it with joy and flair.

Many of you might be familiar with Nancy Campbell, editor of Above Rubies. I’ve been reading Nancy for years, but I’ve never seen or heard her. In this presentation, she talks about the family meal table being the heart of the home. (In her sing-song accent, the word “heart” is pronounced “hot.” I smiled every time she said the word.) In this one hour video, she inspires, encourages, and equips women to make the family meal table a priority. Never legalistic or condescending, Nancy reminds us that the enemy of the best is sometimes those things that are good. Too much running around and misplaced priorities take away from nurturing our bodies and souls around the table. Her husband, Colin, also speaks to men about nourishing your family’s souls with God’s Word.

This is the stuff of life. When my children look back on their childhoods, I imagine that they will remember the “way things were.” With fondness I hope they will relish the comfortable traditions we found in the dailyness of life. The family dinner table is one of those things that people are homesick for, but they don’t realize that it’s what they are missing.

I just finished reading Henry and the Great Society. Shame on me for taking this long to get my hands on a copy. As I began write a summary, a further look uncovered a more thoughtful and helpful examination in the Cumberland Books catalog. I’ve copied the summation below and hope you find it beneficial. Afterward, I included a few notes of my own.

Briefly, Henry and the Great Society is the story of Henry, a man living in a cultural cul-de-sac, who was pursuing a way of life that was perhaps a hundred years behind the times, when modern living suddenly becomes a possibility. Henry himself is not much attracted to modern living, but his wife and children are, and he naturally wants them to have the best—the “good things in life,” as he puts it. A series of seemingly inconsequential decisions, each one apparently beneficial in itself, inexorably destroys the self-sufficient, productive, peaceful, and satisfied Henry, transforming him into a thoroughly modern man—dependent, debt-ridden, unhealthy, overworked, worried. Henry’s family is destroyed as his wife and children find lives to live outside the home.

Because H.L. Roush barely fleshes out the characters of Henry, his wife Esther, and his children, it is that much easier for the reader to project himself into the story. Every time Henry takes another step away from agrarianism and towards The Great Society, your heart sinks and you want to shout out a warning—Don’t do it, Henry! Don’t you see what a high price you’ll pay for such a trivial gain?

But all the while you know that you were just as prone to Henry to have chosen the same path. In fact, you’re much further down that path, due to your own choices and the choices of those that went before you. You are fully immersed in the life of dependence and specialization and wage-slavery that Henry is steadily inching towards, and so you know exactly how much Henry is throwing away, exactly what sort of bondage he is selling himself into.

We recommend that you stop reading the book at the end of Henry’s story (p. 86). You won’t want to, because the ending is very bleak and you will be looking for some respite from the story, something to encourage you. Unfortunately, the final part of the book consists of H.L. Roush’s theological reflections
on the story, and they aren’t especially edifying. Best to think through the story yourself, perhaps even read it to your children, and together as a family consider what went wrong for Henry, how he might have avoided the downward spiral, and what lessons can be applied to your own circumstances.

Since our friend Chad Degenhart first introduced us to this book, we thought it would be fitting to include a review that Chad once posted on his fine weblog, House of Degenhart [Edit: Date-Dabitur is his new site].

Henry and the Great Society is definitely not the feel-good story that Heiland is. If you’ve ever felt like you were caught in the rat race, caught on a treadmill, too busy, unfulfilled, overworked, or a slave to your job or your debts, you should read this book. If you’ve ever been on a camping trip to “get away from it all”, or visited a rural countryside, a scenic mountain range, or lush wilderness, and said “Now this is God’s country”, you should read this book. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Some people will read it and have no idea what its about. Others will read it and get angry or exasperated. But for a few of you, this book will touch your heart and wrench your gut at the same time. While it may depress you just a little, the next feeling that you might have is a compelling desire to buy the book in bulk to distribute to everyone you know.

My question for everyone that empathizes with Henry is: what should he have done? And further, what should we do to avoid his fate? One of the differences I see in Henry and Heiland is that Heiland built family and community, and Henry lost those things because he didn’t value them highly enough, he didn’t understand them or what was required to nourish them, and he never weighed his decisions in terms of what it would really cost his family and community. For instance, $1,000 to Henry seemed like a reasonable price to purchase a used car—but as the book unfolds we see what it costs Henry. His wife can now attend PTA meetings and Canasta games, leaving Henry and kids to heat up microwave dinners for supper. The children no longer knew their land or neighbors, as they now only traveled through their community at 60mph with their heads buried in comic books or magazines. The maintenance on the car required more trips to town, more phone calls, and more debt to manage. The ease of traveling to town translated into more and more trips to town, and less and less time together at home. Property taxes went up because of the costs of paving and maintaining the road, and Henry had to sell parts of his homestead to stay (temporarily) afloat.

The author of Henry and the Great Society does a masterful job of showing how “the good things in life” end up killing us. What he doesn’t do is show us what to do about it, and so we’re left wondering what Henry should have done, and how far we need to go to get our freedom back. What makes it worse is that most of us that read the book have started out in a much worse position than Henry did. Part of what makes Henry’s story so sad is the great amount that he lost, but some of us had nothing much to start with, being second or third generation wage/rent/mortgage/property tax/zoning/technology slaves. Sometimes it seems that the only solution is to run even faster on the treadmill, so that we can produce incrementally more than necessary in order to purchase our freedom, so to speak. It seems to me that Henry can’t win without first winning back the hearts of his family, and then the hearts of his community, and that there are things that must be done which are far beyond the scope of the individual. Part of the detrimental effects of modern industrial society is the loss of real community, and part of the antithesis must be to build it within the context of God’s laws which offer protection and objective standards for dealing with societal problems. The simple, contented life is impossible in isolation, our future requires community cooperation. God’s laws provide a sure foundation for us to build upon, and modern society will crumble precisely because it is not built upon God’s laws, but on sinking sand.

Rick mentions the shallowness of the characters, and I couldn’t tell if this was purposeful or not. Nevertheless, while the device enables the reader to substitute his/her own circumstances, what it doesn’t do is give a lot of credibility to the initial chapters. The author paints a glorious picture of agrarian living and minimalizes the hardships by conveniently leaving them out. A better approach (in order to appeal to the cynics, I suppose) would’ve been to point out that the benefits far outweigh the inconveniences instead of just pretending that the hardships aren’t there. I thought this was a weakness in the book, but maybe there was something profound there that I missed.

This book is important because it details a journey that we’d like to do in reverse. Careful thought and planning are going into how to make this happen. How do we launch our children into the world, avoiding the consumerism and discontentment that ultimately killed Henry and is killing us? How do we take steps now to start walking the other direction? The author writes on the subject of our children’s inheritance which we are taking steps to build now, “We are concerned about their education, and the material fortune we can leave them; but what about the legacy of a way of life? We do not seem to remember that as we walk our feet are creating upon the impressionable earth a path that, although we are long gone, our children will continue to follow without a thought or reason in regard to the rightness of it.” (p. 92)

In order to jump out of the rat race, you must first realize that you’re in it. This book will open your eyes to that if you aren’t already convinced of it. While I feel glad to know that I’m a rat and only 30, how much better would it have been if I’d known sooner? Henry was content with food, clothing, shelter, and an honest day’s work. The theme of contentment is implicit throughout the book and always a good thing to discuss, whether or not you are convinced that an agrarian model is best way to achieve it.

Flowers are the central theme in a childhood dream that hasn’t let up. I might as well just go ahead and say it plainly. Trying to find a clever way to put it won’t save me any embarrassment.

I’ve always wanted a home where flowers spill out everywhere: window boxes, pots, landscaping, and by the front door. Everything is a tidy abundance—colorful and lush. Tulips, roses, chrysanthemums, blueberries, impatiens, hollyhocks…. Any of it, all of it, and a lot of it.

The flowers are an allusion to what is found inside the home, you could say. It says, God’s handiwork—like His personhood– is generous, abundant, overflowing. Welcome. Come home and stay. Enjoy the fruitfulness.

I make strides at this sometimes. (My dream still calls for more wildflowers and less concrete.) The 70 degree weather is cooperating. The impatiens, tomatoes, and grapefruit are plentiful these days. Yesterday, I remarked to Greg, “Don’t these flowers make you so happy?!”

“No,” he replied, always theologically correct. Well then.

“Well, do they aid in your joy?”

Again, this time with a playful smirk, “No.”

Getting my theological bearings, I tried a third time, “Do they aid in your delight of the all-sufficient, marvelous handiwork of a creative, awesome God?” There.

“Yes.”

I thought of yesterday’s exchange during my reading this afternoon. Due to an unpublished review by Carmon Friedrich of Eric Brende’s Better Off (2004), I made the book my first read of the new year, even though it lacked classic status. It is the story of a MIT graduate and his new wife leaving behind modern technology for 18 months to live with a very primitive Amish-like group for the purpose of answering the question, “Is less really more?” Consider his thoughts on contentment:

In our era of high technology, affluent westerners spend billions every year to “get away” to exotic locales. They do so surely to escape the stress and frustration of modern life, but also to relieve its monotony. They spend forty-eight weeks [my edit: we are used to fifty weeks or so] of the year in the same job in a climate-controlled environment; when they go home in the evening, they travel on the same stretch of freeway to a subdivision where all the houses look the same; they watch television programs that reduce the complex issues of life to half-hour segments on a flat screen. They crave diversion, depth, escape. So they fly to Bermuda. [...] There may be another way. What if they just noticed the weather changing? (Better Off, p. 150)

While Leaf Watching for your vacation isn’t the author’s main intent in the remark, consider the sentiment. At first, simplifying our lifestyle happened more out of necessity than ideology. Going anywhere with five small children quickly became an equation where the return didn’t justify the output of energy. I could either cut down on our reproduction rate or I could cut down our keeping up with the Jones. Now, I believe that the artificial appetites created by always going here and there, to and fro are better filled by choosing carefully outside commitments and making home a place where everyone wants to be.

The children are happy to play catch, dig for worms, and play made-up games. Greg and I are content to watch from the front porch where the weather changes just enough to make it all very interesting.